"Lots to do in the world of Vana'diel"

As usual break my review into 5 categories Gameplay,PvP,Sound,Graphics, and Customer service. Each category will be split into a few smaller categories that are related to the main one.

Gameplay

Battle System 7/10- You engage a monster in combat by clicking on it, run up to it and starting auto attacking it with your weapon or stay a a distance and hit hotkeys to cast spells until the monster is dead. This is just like 80% of the other mmorpgs so nothing special about it. After level 10 killing monsters and leveling becomes almost entirely group based and that means that attacking a monster that will give you a normal amount of exp will most likely kill you in two hits.

Party System 7/10- The FFXI world revolves around partying with other players to level, there is no way around it. A base party consists 5 players a healer and tank are mandatory for any party so you will be looking for them the most when leveling. To makes things easier their a search system in place to look for party members who are also looking for a party or even those who aren't. You can also create alliances which are a few parties joined together this is monster boss type monsters.

Quest System 8/10- There are quests like in every game collect items and turn them in to the the quest givers and then their are quests that are unique to FFXI. The game focuses alot on storyline and the quests are the main part of this, you'll probably actually read what the characters have to say and get in to the story of the quest. These quests however are long, the longest of any quests of ever done in any mmorpgs and also difficult but the rewards are usually worth it.

Burning Circle Notorious Monsters 8/10- Also known as BCNMs these are boss fights which are alot more difficult then normal ones. They usually require specific strategies to defeat but drop powerful gear and rare gear. You can enter a these battle by using a special orb on the burning circle which will warp you to the boss battle. All BCNMs have a character limit and level limit meaning that only a certain amount of players can enter that can be anywhere from 3 to to a few alliances, the level limit will give you a level cap status when you enter over the level limit of the BCNM so you will be temporarily lower in level while the battle takes place. There is one more catch to BCNMs, your on a time limit when the time runs out your kicked and lose this is one of the more challenging features of FFXI.

Conquest 8/10- You can gain territories for your country by having signet cast on you and killing monsters which will give you and your country points, if your country has the most points in the territory it will belong to your country this will put an npc that you can save your respawn spot at and they will also cast signet on you. Your country will also receive resources from the territory that can be bought at npcs in your main city. Conquest also has a second bonus the points you received can buy special gear from your country.

Raising Chocobos 8/10- You can now raise chocobos, this starts when you trade an egg to the chocobo raiser in one of the 3 main cities. The process takes about a month and its attributes will depend on how you raised it. This is done through your own care plan which includes exercise,foods, and rest. You can do various activities with your chocobo from traveling to chocobo hot and cold game.

Character Customization 5/10- There are currently 18 jobs 3 are part of the newest expansion, in FFXI you can also use a sub job which is half the level of your main one, so basically a character is made up of 2 jobs. However customization is very limited all characters at the same level will be basically the same especially tank and healing classes.

Gameplay Overall 7/10

PvP

Ballista 7/10- Team based battle where you dig for Petras or rocks among other things then you kill an enemy for a Gate Breach status so you can throw your petra into the Rook which is a floating castle this scores you a point. This can be pretty fun and there's a large range in levels that you can play.

PvP Overall 7/10

Graphics

Character models 9/10- You can customize your face,hairstyle, and size of your character. There are 5 different races to choose from all of them look very different from the huge Galka to the tiny TaruTaru all which are very well done.

Environment 9/10- One of the best I have seen of any mmorpg, the landscape can be absolutely amazing and really gives you the feel for the area you are in. The weather is also gives even more of a feel to game while your playing and the amount of detail is brings everything together. If only they put the effort into the battle system this would probably be the #1 mmorpg.

Effects 8/10- The effects are nice and well done nothing all that special but nothing bad either.

Overall Graphics- 9/10

Sound

Music 9/10- The music is well done and fits the mood to the area of the game. You can tell effort was put into the sound track of the game I really enjoyed it.

Effects 8/10- Everything is crisp nothing clunky isn't much more to say about it.

Sound Overall 9/10

Customer Service

Server Reliability 9/10- I have never had a problem with logging on or lag with FFXI and I can count the times the server has gone down for 30 minutes since I started playing and that 3 times over 4 years.

GMs 6/10-Some of them are helpful others are useless but mostly if you have a problem someone will help you eventually though it may take awhile. Unfortunately the GMs are really the nicest people around whether they help you or not.

Hacking related problems 8/10- Besides some minor problems that were fixed there are no hacking problems in FFXI. The only problem is Gil sellers which is there are efforts to stop overall though pretty good. I have never heard of anyone getting their FFXI accounts getting hacked and really the security makes its extremely hard to do unless you give out your account info.

Customer Service 8/10

Players who like to play a game long term will truly love FFXI however more casual players with have trouble with time commitment of the game.